For Juarez, the main factor behind digital disruption is disintermediation. Essentially, each of us is now our own media outlet. “This is what these platforms have sold us: You choose what to be informed about and you live inside a bubble. You look for information that confirms what you already knew or thought. If you think what happened in Venezuela was good, you will look for information that supports it, and vice versa. This creates an environment where we only hear what we want to hear.”
According to the Digital News Report 2025, the migration to digital platforms – especially by younger generations – is becoming increasingly evident: 16 percent of those surveyed reported frequently turning to TikTok for news. This figure was 19 percent for WhatsApp, 36 percent for Facebook and 30 percent for YouTube.
beyond the algorithm
Polarization doesn’t require a malicious algorithm to disrupt public conversation; This is an inevitable consequence of the basic design of social platforms. By simulating an environment that emphasizes certain forms of connection and dialogue, a continuous loop emerges where emotional content is most visible and, ultimately, this shapes the architecture of the network. This is not a question of users actively seeking out conflict or the platform being designed with any malicious intent, but rather the result of a rewarding emotional response over measured analysis.
For Petter Tornberg, who worked on the study, “This toxicity is an unintended consequence of the structure of posts and followers. The act of sharing content is often impulsive and deeply biased; users react with anger or scandal, propagating a narrative that, in turn, shapes their own digital environment. This feedback loop between emotional action and network structure creates an ecosystem where toxicity becomes the organic norm. Ultimately, basic functions like forwarding and liking. The existence itself seems sufficient to generate these negative consequences, turning networks into echo chambers that feed on our own reactive psychology.
“I believe that digital platforms can remain a space for resistance and solutions. But to avoid becoming an echo chamber, there must be a real intention to engage in dialogue. And that does not always happen when we are going through very difficult times,” an anonymous Venezuelan source told WIRED. “When our emotional wounds overpower reason, it becomes very difficult to understand others’ viewpoints. For this to be possible, the wound must first be recognized and understood, and sometimes we will not be able to find the equanimity to engage in a dialogue. However, that dialogue must occur.”
This Venezuelan source explained, “We are now experiencing massive polarization among Venezuelans inside and outside the country because of this incident, which I personally consider a violent act of foreign interference. I can understand the joy of those who celebrate the imprisonment of Nicolás Maduro as a moment of justice. But at the same time, I am against foreign interference, against Donald Trump and against him taking away our resources from us.” “We have done everything; we have tried everything possible. We are in this situation because we are surrounded and insecure by American imperialism as well as by Russia and China. Power has led us to this state of extreme insecurity. Digital platforms, however, can be a space of resistance.”
too much information; very little attention
Juarez explains, due to information overload, our attention span, which is a limited resource, is greatly reduced: “There comes a point where we shut up and say, ‘That’s it, this is what I think.’ We typically invest as little psychological energy as possible and use shortcuts to reach our conclusions: I watched the video, I watched the quote, I watched the tweet, and that’s it; My work is done. We simplify because simplification acts as an antidote to saturation. When we are inundated with information we feel confused and anxious. The level of that anxiety depends on our proximity to an event. The desire to adopt a certain approach is successful only when we have to weigh the many real implications of a situation.
Juarez says, “My main concern is that we have lost the ability to discern what is a lie and what is true. We are willing to accept canned stories. If we lose that ability as citizens, we also lose our agency.” “What we are seeing in Venezuela is not the end of a story, it is the beginning of a dynamic that will not stop here.”
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and was translated from Spanish by John Newton.
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